In private call, Education Dept. tried, but failed, to reassure disability advocates

The Education Department plans to shift oversight of special education to another agency, alarming many disability rights advocates. Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images hide caption

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In a call with disability rights advocates Thursday, officials from the U.S. Department of Education tried to ease concerns about plans to move the agency's special education offices to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

"Today's briefing left more questions than answers for parents and educators," says Chad Rummel, who leads the Council for Exceptional Children, and was one of many disability advocates who attended the call. "Today we heard that there is no clear and transparent plan around the move to HHS."

According to a recording of the call obtained by NPR, the acting assistant secretary overseeing special education, Kelly Rogers, said she wanted to reassure advocates that the move would not harm federal protections for students with disabilities. "The U.S. Health and Human Services is not taking over IDEA. Period." Rogers was referring to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that guarantees students with disabilities a quality public education alongside their nondisabled peers.

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Yet Rogers also said in the same breath that staff at the Office for Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) — many of the people actually responsible for supporting states and schools in implementing IDEA — would be moving to HHS. She said she would continue to oversee that staff from her perch at the Education Department "with additional support by HHS."

While department officials have been pitching this move as a way to streamline federal bureaucracy in education, advocates think it is doing the opposite. "This proposal appears to add another layer of bureaucracy while creating additional confusion and uncertainty for families, educators, and state agencies," says Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA).

In Thursday's call, Rogers said, "This administration is firmly committed to carrying out the federal government's duty to enforce federal protections for individuals with disabilities." She continued, "This partnership does not alter that obligation." Rogers did not share a specific timeline for these changes to take effect.

NPR followed up with the Education Department by email after the call, and while the agency did not respond to questions about its timeline, press secretary Savannah Newhouse wrote, "Advocates, parents, and teachers in the special education community have nothing to fear" about the changes. "What our partnership with HHS does is place these important federal responsibilities in a better positioned agency and draw on HHS' expertise of working with people with disabilities of all ages."

The private briefing came three weeks after the initial announcement that the Education Department would move two of its core functions — special education and civil rights — to other agencies in an ongoing Trump administration effort to dismantle the department altogether . The department has already shared plans to move more than a dozen of its offices to other agencies as part of its "Returning Education to the States" campaign .

For decades, the Education Department has overseen IDEA and other services for people with disabilities, like helping adults transition to life after school. While the federal government has never directly managed how schools serve students, it has been responsible for keeping schools accountable for meeting the needs of those students, providing federal funding for services and offering technical assistance to local leaders.

For months, the disability community has been on edge about how moving oversight of IDEA could affect students.

"The concern is not that IDEA disappears overnight. The concern is that the administration is preserving IDEA at the Department of Education on paper, while moving much of the work that makes IDEA real for families somewhere else," said Jacqueline Rodriguez, CEO of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. "For students, that could mean more confusion, slower guidance, weaker monitoring and less accountability when services are delayed or denied."

Newhouse, from the Education Department, denied that the changes would affect how staff do their jobs. "A different building, a different floor, or a different desk doesn't change their job responsibilities and commitment to serve students with disabilities every single day."

Department officials say federal funds dedicated to special education will continue to flow to states and schools through the agency for now, but it's unclear how those systems may change when OSERS staff move to HHS.

"The administration acknowledged today what the law has always required: The Department of Education and the secretary of education remain legally responsible for administering and enforcing IDEA. This reorganization neither advances the stated goal of closing the department nor transfers new authority to the states," says Marshall of COPAA. She called on Congress to step in and stop this move — a federal agency can only be completely dissolved by an act of Congress.

But as Marshall and other advocates pointed out, administration officials seem keenly aware of this fact, which may be why the Education Department is keeping some staff, including Rogers, at the Education Department.

Edited by: Nirvi Shah Visual design and development by: LA Johnson